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Comment by tomp | Hacker News Reader

> The EU will make the UK pay a price for Brexit, and rightly so, otherwise all member states would leave and still enjoy the free movement of goods and people.

I really hate this sentiment. This is just about the worst EU can do, it would damage its legitimacy in the eyes of us, EU citizens, even more than the handling of the Greek crisis already did.

I don't see any reason to punish a country for voting to leave the EU, except pure spite and greed for more power. Why can't we all be friends, each on the terms that they want?!

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It's not going to be a matter of punishment. This almost sets negotiation back to square one. There are A LOT of effects in this that needs to be taken into account. Anything that's reciprocal currently (e.g. access to healthcare for Britons in Spain and for Spaniards in UK) is going to evaporate and will need to be reevaluated.

Now, the UK has clearly stated they don't like some things like free movement of people. The point of getting out of the EU is not to do a copy/paste of the current agreements and sign them in a week. The UK (not the EU) has decided to cancel everything and start from scratch because they don't feel like they could get to a comfortable situation inside the EU.

Even with the best of intentions, negotiating this kind of complex inter-state treaties take years. And, understandably, there will be extra care and friction because the UK has already got out once. Meanwhile, all the benefits are not going to be present.

I, sincerely, don't think we should think this in terms of "punishment", but if someone gets out of an agreement and immediately starts to renegotiate (more favourable) terms, it's reasonable to expect the negotiation to be hard...

>Now, the UK has clearly stated they don't like some things like free movement of people.

Non-european people coming in as economic inmigrants, to be more precise.

It's all a bit confused, but the rhetoric is basically against all immigrants, with eastern Europeans being one particularly targeted group in the context of Brexit.

But it's complex. People were asked by the media which way they would vote and why. Asians were saying they'd been promised more immigration from their country by the Leave campaign, while other people were saying they'd vote Leave because there were too many Africans living in their street. The thought of Turkey joining, and letting in Syrian refugees was also in the mix.

And one of the intellectual leaders of Leave has already stated he's confused why people think voting Leave will reduce immigration.

I thought they were pretty heavily against EU migrants from poorer nations as well? At least that's been UKIP's position.

It's not about punishment, but fairness and self-preservation. There's no point to the EU if countries can leave and enjoy the perks of membership at the same time. If the EU is going to come out of this in one piece, they will need to demonstrate that the perks of membership go hand-and-hand with the sacrifices needed to make things work.

Unfortunately for Britain, they've shown their hand early and they have no real leverage. I think the EU will demonstrate good will because they understand that those most directly affected by this vote did not agree with it. So I won't be surprised to see visa waivers and the like for expats.

I also think future trade agreements will be "fair." Which is to say, I don't think they will be punitive, but I doubt it will be as favorable to "independent" England as it was to "member" England.

Its not even that the EU really wants to make the UK pay. It's just that the UK had so many advantages that it negotiated before. Now they basically reset themselves back to 1972, but the problem is the EU is much bigger at 27 members today then in 72. Making it extremely unlikely that the re-negotiation is going to end up as well today. Also the UK will want a super fast negotation, the rest of the EU are not so much in a hurry. The UK is negotiation in a position of relative weakness. The professionals on the other side will of course take advantage of that.

In the end I doubt the UK will get as nice a deal as Swiss or Norway nor at such a fast rate. The main deal of the EU is free movement, that is not on the table due to the UK. Without free movement of people, free movement of goods and money are going to be difficult.

If I'm not mistaken UK is one of the larger economies, and therefore should have more influence over the negotiations than there smaller, and less significant countries.

As for free movement of things, I believe it is in the best interest of the EU to allow lenient trade with UK, insofar as it doesn't damage its reputation as a legitimate institution.

However if reputation does take precedence over economic sense, then the UK has plenty of other new opportunities, on a global scale, negotiate trade freely with little EU intervention.

It was one of the larger economies; as it will now be an isolated island with no automatic access to the European market, it's value will be lost to a lot of businesses.

Well yes, and no. It now depends all on how the trade deals are negotiated.

What I'm arguing is that the UK has plenty of bargaining chips, and can trade elsewhere if it doesn't feel like it's getting a fair deal in the EU.

Trade with whom? There aren't that many regions the world with a similar per capita income like the EU. The UK already trades extensively with the US and Canada, so that's an unlikely growth engine. Granted, the UK is a large economy, and may have some bargaining chips, but it needs the EU more than vice versa.

I don't think so, nor do the UK people. Good trade deals can be achieved regardless of EU membership, unless UK is can be substituted, which, I don't think, it can.

Except previously it was negotiating with a number of smaller entities.

Now it will be negotiating with a block of them. The UK just willingly decreased their leverage so they had free will.

Thank you, from all of America. You managed to be completely embarrasing in your 2016 election cycle, before we are really able to be shockingly shameful in front of you.

Brits are polite to the end.

> Also the UK will want a super fast negotation, the rest of the EU are not so much in a hurry.

It seems to be rather the opposite. The EU is calling for fast negotiations whereas the UK is taking it easy.

You're confusing the start of the process of leaving and the following negotiations. Britain and the EU have symmetrical, opposed interests there:

The EU wants a fast official declaration from the UK that they want to leave. They want to start the clock running. If after two years there is no agreement, so what, let's negotiate for however long it takes.

Britain wants fast negotiations, because their economy depends on results, but they don't want to formally start the process. Because if they can't get a deal in two years after article 50 invocation they are in a very, very bad position.

It's not that simple:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36631518

What do you mean? I don't see anything in that article that might have a connection with what I wrote. Except that it's about Brexit.

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